St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1887-06-15

"W DuC WlCn diner
ence. She does not
stand ON her own feet, like the New
York woman, because she feels her in
fiuence in society. nor like the New En-
gland woman, because she has been
taught to think for herself, but because,
like all frontiersmen, she has been
forced to act for herself, and, with true
Western grit, she does it well. She
knows how to take care of herself. She
knows how to take care of her cattle.
She knows how to make for her children
homestead and heritage. Occasion
ally, she knows what few Self-Support-
ing. women have yet learned, how to
make money not only to live ON, but to
count wealth nowadays.
There are women all over the WeSt.''
Mr.. Roosevelt said the other day, ''who
have come to be as thoroughly capable
OF managing their affairs for them
selves as if they were the shrewdest of
men. Fortitude and patience we
always look for in woman, but cool
bravery and business talent are the
qualities that sometimes come out
strongest when she finds herself facing
rude civilization and left to shift
for herself as best she can. Life on the
ranch is certainly rough for a woman.
There is no call to pity pioneer of the
other sex, for if he has the right stuff in
him it won't hurt him to buckle right
down to the bone, and then he can't but
succeed. But for woman, to an East
erner at least, it seems different. And
yet, sol far as one can see. they like it,
good many of them, and it brings out
the best that is in them. They are
not all angels by any means, and a
woman desperate is sometimes quite as
much to be feared as the worst of the
men. There was one down in Arizona
whom the ranchmen tell tales of yet,
and with something like pride in her
exploits, too, who killed, so they say,
twenty-five men with her own hands.
so that it was decidedly risky to be
covered by her rifle. But that same
pluck and courage that she showed
turned into more peaceful channels,
makes splendid success of some of the
ranchwomen. The women who are
managing cattle ranges for themselves,
not helping their husbands gain foot
ing, which is sometimes about as hard,
COME FROM ALL SOCIAL RANKS
and have drifted into the business-I
don't know what proportion of them
have deliberately chosen tin all sorts
of ways. Some of them are Texans
who were almost cradeled with cattle,
and to whom running a mower, feeding
stock, breaking wild horses, or doing
any sort of work about ranch,
is so much matter of edu-
cation and habit that it seems
as much their natural occupation
as taking in sewing to a notable
housewife left widow in an Eastern
village. They take hold cleverly with
their husbands if they marry; they
strike out for themselves ON small
scale, which sometimes grows to a
large, if they don't. Other ranch
women, especially in Dakota, come
states north of the Ohio. There are
school teachers among them, who have
concluded to train something that
may possibly shoot more than the
young idea. Most of them went West,
in the first place, with their husbands,
to see what could be done in new
country, and when the man of the FAM
lily died or broke down, the wife, rather
than sacrifice the foothold already
gained, stayed on, learned by expert
ence, bought her knowledge pretty
dearly sometimes, failed utterly per-
haps. if the winters were bad or fire
swept away her buildings; uc-
ceeded more probably, kept
her stock in good shape,
added to their numbers and came out
ahead a little every year. 1t is no joke
to succeed in Dakota in cattle raising or
tree-planting or wheat farming. but
women can and do make money in all
three. Success is graded, of course, as
elsewhere. The women ranchers whom
| know persOnally-and that is no very
. large number-are not in the business on
large scale. Some of them are not
To Il, Il.
ideas of the bigneSS of the Western OPP
erations, interpret the world at all.
They have no more than six or ten cat
tie, perhaps, and from that number will
run up to twenty-five or fifty head, but
they are an energetic and busineSS-like
set of women, who are working indus
triOuSly in the day of small things, and
of course with some, though perhaps
with no large number of others, the day
of larger things has already come"
KEEPING BOARDERS AND A RANCH.
How the ranchwOman, whose bust
ness enterprise MI. Roosevelt cOmmends
in the West, sometimes makes her start
from the East, is Illustrated in the
case of New York clearinghouse
keeper. who is working at both ends
of the line just now. Keeping board
ers is one of the most wearisome and
diScOuraging ways in which
woman earns living. But when
she can keep $50 of them the case
is different, indeed. This energetic
woman had laid by money enough some
three or four years ago to take up land
in Dakota and stock on small scale
cattle range. Since that time her cattle
have thriven and her boarding has
prospered. With the profits Of the
latter she has increased the number
and imprOvad the brood Of tho formar
and is looking forward to the day'
not very far distant, when her West
ern venture shall be we'll started and
under such promising Roadway that she
need heed no longer the complaints of
the parlor floor ledger whose eggs is al
ways minute too hard or ten seconds
too soft, but can put up her Gotham
shut and settle herself to grow up
with the country in the free and bound
ing West, where her hand need practice
its cunning in the mixing of hash no